Ben Carson

Season two of NBC’s comedy Marlon premiered Thursday evening with two back-to-back episodes, both of which took digs at esteemed Housing and Urban Development Secretary Dr. Ben Carson, portraying him as a “sellout” and the polar opposite of hero Martin Luther King. Two other famous, black conservatives were also painted as sellouts and anti-heroes: former Apprentice star and Trump administration staffer Omarosa Manigault and actress Stacey Dash.

Here is a short list of prominent conservatives and independent thinkers who've been accused by their critics of being an "Uncle Tom" or some other vitriolic variation on the overplayed left-wing theme of being a traitor to their race or gender ("Aunt Tomasina," "Uncle Juan," "Aunt Jemima," "Uncle Wong," etc.)[.]

'When they go low, we go lower' must have been the mantra for Friday’s Hardball as host Chris Matthews and his opening set of guests denounced Republicans as “North Korean infantry men” led by “racist” President Trump, “sniveling and supine” Ben Carson, “decorative” African-Americans, and “pathetic” House Speaker Paul Ryan.

The most recent cover of Time Magazine — or I should say what's left of it, given its parent company's recent decision "reducing ... circulation and frequency" of the formerly iconic publication — calls President Donald Trump's cabinet "The Wrecking Crew" on a mission of "dismantling government as we know it." Separate reports singled out EPA Director Scott Pruitt, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, and HUD Secretary Ben Carson for scrutiny.

As The Root's Jason Johnson appeared as a panel member on Wednesday's New Day on CNN, the race-obsessed political analyst was true to form as he took his latest opportunity to trash White House advisor Steve Bannon, this time calling him an "anti-Semite" and someone who "sympathizes with white terrorist organizations," as he received no pushback from CNN hosts Alisyn Camerota or Chris Cuomo over his incendiary charges.

On Wednesday's CNN Tonight, host Don Lemon was joined by fellow CNN host and comedian W. Kamau Bell to argue that Dr. Ben Carson deserved to be criticized for his recent comments that included African slaves with other "immigrants" as they argued that President Barack Obama's similar words highlighted by conservatives were somehow different and justifiable. Although Dr. Carson's use of the word "immigrants" in his speech to HUD was a large component of the lambasting he attracted from liberals, Bell shifted the focus away from the use of the word "immigrants" to Dr. Carson's comments about slaves dreaming of a better life -- as if it were unreasonable to think slaves would have hoped that their children would some day have a better life.

In his first remarks this week to Housing and Urban Development (HUD) employees, Secretary of HUD Ben Carson called slaves “immigrants,” that had hopes for the American Dream, comments that sent the media in an uproar. From print to television to social media, journalists and celebrities alike condemned the remarks as extremely offensive. Yet the media forgot that former President Obama has also compared slaves to immigrants, and not just once, but several times.

During his Senate confirmation hearing, Dr. Ben Carson, secretary of Housing and Urban Development-designate, told a story. He said his mother was a domestic who cleaned beautiful homes. One day she asked him if he would rather live in those nice houses or the house in which he and his brother lived in Detroit. She told him that only he could decide the type of home he would eventually live in by how much he studied in school and the choices he made for his life.

Esquire’s Pierce readily concedes that Ben Carson (“an elite neurosurgeon”) and Mike Pompeo (“graduated at the top of his class at West Point”) are smart guys. In a way, though, they’re also tragic figures, he suggests, since they’ve “had to tailor their politics and their public personae to cater to the anti-rational, theocratic, anti-intellectual Id of modern conservatism…This means that both Carson and Pompeo have long histories of saying and writing things that sound like transmissions coming through their molars from Planet X.”

Appearing as a guest on Sunday's AM Joy on MSNBC to discuss ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson's selection to be Donald Trump's Secretary of State, allegedly right-leaning Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin derided the cabinet picks as "ignoramuses, billionaires, and a few generals," and fretted that it was "pretty frightful stuff."

On Friday's New Day, during a debate between liberal Daily Beast contributor Dean Obeidallah and conservative CNN political commentator Ben Ferguson about whether incoming Donald Trump administration members are anti-Islam, CNN co-anchor Chris Cuomo suggested at one point that many whites, feeling like they have been "victimized" by Islam, supported Trump because they think "now it's our turn" to do so back against Muslims.

NPR's Morning Edition on Tuesday touted how many "anti-poverty advocates across the political spectrum" are now "worried" after President-Elect Donald Trump picked Dr. Ben Carson to be secretary of Housing and Urban Development. Correspondent Pam Fessler spotlighted how "advocates fear the worst — that it will lead to deep cuts in programs to reduce homelessness, and to subsidize affordable housing." However, Fessler didn't mention that her first "advocate" worked in the Obama administration, and the second donated to his presidential campaign.

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